Teofilo F. Ruiz

On his book The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization

Cover Interview of November 09, 2011

Lastly

What I would wish for this book is for those who read it to understand that it is a personal reflection, my reflection.

But I also wish readers to bring themselves into the book and to reflect on history, on their individual and collective histories.

As I mention in the book, the truth is that history has no agency. History does not do anything. We do. If we wish to survive as a species, if we wish for a future that is not as laden with troubles as our past and present have been and are, then we must act.

While denying the validity of progress, my take is not an entirely pessimistic one. We can only move forward as full humans when we take our masks—as Nietzsche suggested—off. Or, when we come to accept that what gives meaning to our lives has been constructed, invented. And that the inventions and formulas we call history are often constructed for the benefit of the few and the burden of the many.

Nonetheless, in spite of this cruel reality, there is beauty in the world. There is meaning in the world that transcends our often futile efforts to make sense of the world as “we have found it.”

Francis Bacon is attributed with saying: “thou shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I do not think that many of us today would admit to the idea that there is a Truth with a capital T, or that there is real freedom of the self. There are, I fear, many truths formulated in the myriad contexts of our lives and cultures. Or, perhaps, there is no truth at all.

In the end, finding the truth is far less important or possible than seeking the truth. Thus, I wish the reader to find his or her own way of asking these questions for themselves, and perhaps to come to a better understanding of these problems that I have had done in this book.

I would be most grateful for your comments, suggestions, and criticism. The search does not end here.

Spontaneous generation is one of those wrong theories that clutter the basements of the biological sciences and that now look so very obviously wrong that it is hard to see how anyone could have taken them seriously in the first place. Why wouldn’t it occur to anyone that flies might be laying eggs that were too small for us to see? How simple would the crucial experiment be? What I have tried to do in much of my work is to turn this ‘obvious wrongness’ on its head—why, exactly, does it seem so obviously wrong?—and see what the new picture that emerges from that inquiry says about science and our belief in its results.Daryn Lehoux, Interview of November 13, 2017

It’s commonplace to say that humor is subjective, since what’s funny to you might not be funny to me. But humor is also a loaded concept. If you – or your people – have no sense of humor, or the wrong one, that means you’re less rational, tolerant, understanding, or civilized. You don’t get it. Or, worse, you lack something human. Modern Chinese debates about humor were very much caught up with these fundamental questions of value.Christopher Rea, Interview of October 26, 2016